Millions of Russians join strike over wages

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About 4 million teachers and health workers have gone on strike
in Russia in the worst industrial unrest since President Vladimir
Putin came to power nearly five years ago.

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets on Wednesday
to protest against low pay. Many earn less than $A125 a month.

The unrest follows a northern summer during which workers held
several rallies against plans to cut state benefits to veterans,
public sector workers and other vulnerable social groups.

Mr Putin's supporters said the benefits were a huge drag on
state finances and would be replaced by payments in cash.

The latest outpouring of frustration comes as the Russian
economy is doing well, buoyed by record oil prices.

Teachers and other educational workers are demanding that their
salaries be increased by 50 per cent immediately and doubled by
next year.

Moscow demonstrators held rolling protests outside the cabinet
building. In St Petersburg, 1200 educational centres, including
schools, universities and kindergartens, were involved in the
protests.

About 30,000 demonstrators took to the streets in Voronezh, 640
kilometres south-east of the capital. Sergei Vorobyev, headmaster
of School No. 73, told Russian television: "More than 90 per cent
of teachers in my school are forced to moonlight in order to
survive."

Galina Maslova, a geography teacher for 20 years, said she began
her days sweeping the floor and emptying the rubbish in a local
supermarket for which she was paid more than her $86 a month
teacher's salary.

A trade union leader in the Pacific Far East said that strikes
would resume and spread if the Government failed to meet their
demands. Protesters there carried banners saying "A Worthy Salary
for Teachers and Doctors" and "For a Dignified Life".

The average Russian salary is about $245 a month, but most state
sector workers earn only a little more than a half of that.

The Deputy Prime Minister, Alexander Zhukov, said salaries may
be increased by 30 to 50 per cent, but not until next year.
The Russian lower house of parliament, the Duma, has introduced a
law banning the drinking of beer in public.

Duma deputies, working on a series of homeland security bills
after a wave of terrorism attacks left more than 430 people dead in
August and September, said it was a necessary way of taking a
tougher stance on civil order, which unravelled after the fall of
the Soviet Union.

But opponents of the law, including many local brewers with
foreign investors, said the ban would dampen a business sector
expected to grow by 7 per cent this year.

They blame lobbying efforts from the country's powerful vodka
industry. Public consumption of vodka is already prohibited by law,
but often ignored.